Load and Query Web Configuration

Question

Is it somehow possible to load a web.config file in a WinForms app and query the resulting configuration, instead of using XML to find some less than semantic 'add' element?

Answer 1

Hum, did you tried to :

Using System.Web.Configuration;

or

Using System.Configuration;

with that you will should have access to the ConfigurationManager object which will give you access to the web.config file.

Answer 2

You can use the WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration method in the System.Web.Configuration namespace.

Example:

System.Configuration.Configuration config =
        WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration("/", "My Website", null) as System.Configuration.Configuration;

KeyValueConfigurationCollection appSettings = config.AppSettings.Settings;

This gets the appsettings block of website 'My Website'. Just modify the first parameter which is the virtual path to the config file.

Answer 3

You need to add a reference to System.Web then the goes would go something like:

using System.Web.Configuration
WebConfigurationManager webCfg = WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebconfiguration("/WebApp");

// Edit/Query the configuration
webConfig.AppSettings.Settings.Add("NewSetting","SomeValue");
webConfig.AppSettings.SectionInformation.ForceSave = true;

webConfig.Save();

If you want to access a configuration section that does not have a public interface like system.diagnostics then you can use the generic configuration classes. Add a reference to System.Configuration and try something like:

ConfiguationSection sysDiagnostics = webConfig.GetSection("system.diagnostics");
ConfigurationElementCollection sources = sysDiagnostics.ElementInformation.Properties["sources"].Value as ConfigurationElementCollection;
foreach (ConfigurationElement source in sources)
{
    ConfigurationElementCollection listeners = source.ElementInformation.Properties["listeners"].Value as ConfigurationElementCollection;
     foreach (ConfigurationElement listener in listeners)
     {
        Console.WriteLine(listener.ElementInformation.Properties["name"].Value.ToString());
     }
}

Answer 4

After trying, albeit very quickly, all the suggestions above, with varying degrees of failure, I used an XmlDocument and XPath, and did the job with two lines of code and one imported namespace, without requiring additional assembly references.

WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration("/", "My Website", null)

The above requires a virtual path, which means what to a WinForms application? I did state that I needed to open a web.config 'in a WinForms app'.

And I improved my XPath an iota. :-)